The Renaissance artist Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel in all its gourd-geous glory is one of 5,000 illuminated carved and hand-painted pumpkins in this year’s Jack-O-Lantern Spectacular at Roger Williams Park Zoo.

“It’s a pumpkin that’s off the charts,” said John Reckner, the designer of the annual display at the park that has been heralded as a national “Local Legacy” by the Library of Congress and a “Top 100 Event” by the American Bus Association. “It’s the interior of the Sistine Chapel — on a pumpkin — you have to see it appreciate it.”

The quarter-mile long pumpkin spectacular, which winds though a wetlands walkway at the park features an illuminated pumpkin display over the water, a laughing tree ablaze with 500 pumpkins and a series of vignettes with a total of 140 oversized intricately designed gourds in this year’s themed “A Walk in Time” display.

Reckner and his crew of about 25 artists began “a mad drawing spree’ in mid September in preparation for the stunning spooky arrangement that begins with the Prehistoric era and takes visitors through significant historical and cultural periods and wraps up with a display honoring well-known people who passed away this year.

Dinosaurs and wooly mammoths are the central figures in the Prehistoric exhibit, which winds into the “African Discovery of Man” that he said shows early man amid all the different wildlife on the continent.
The Sistine Chapel and Leonardo da Vinci are featured in the Renaissance portion that Reckner called “The Rebirth of Man.” The display turns to American history for the “Age of Democracy” with Washington crossing the Delaware and “The Wild West” with an array of characters: Billy the Kid, General Custer, Sitting Bull and Jesse James.

In addition to the traditional spooky Halloween sights the show also spotlights each decade from the early 1900s to the present in separate vignettes that include the Wright Brothers, Einstein, Betty Boop, Glenn Miller and Rosie the riveter, Norman Rockwell characters, sports celebrities, presidents and pop culture icons. “One of the big displays is the four Seinfeld characters as the forefront to the’ 90s,” said Reckner.

Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe and James Dean are spotlighted in the 1950s display, which is another large exhibit that he said also includes a drive-movie theatre with movie-goers in autos watching “The Creature from the Black Lagoon.” Man’s walk on the moon and rock stars are the central themes in the 1960s area.

The intricately designed and executed display, which he said takes hundreds of hours a week from mid-September, requires backup replacement pumpkins in case unexpected hot weather decays the gourds as happened twice in 2004. “It’s an incredible amount of work, but we always manage to get it together; hopefully we’re prepared in case of hot spells,” he said.

More than 80,000 people visited the display last year and because Halloween falls on a weekend he said the zoo is anticipating even more visitors this year. “If you can get there on a weeknight you can avoid some of the crowds,” he said.

In addition to the Jack-O-Lantern spectacular, the zoo is also offering its daytime Spooky Zoo activities on the weekends of Oct. 24 and 30 with regular zoo admission and new this year, Spooky Zoo Deluxe parties on Oct. 30 and 31, which require an advance ticket purchase. For more information see www.rwpzoo.org or call 401-785-3510.